Noodles in Black Bean Sauce (간짜장면 Kaan JJajangmyeon)

In almost every Korean drama, you will see characters devour this black sauce noodle dish-ending with black sauce all around their mouths. And it’s almost always in an office setting or at home, where these are delivered in a steel or plastic box. Jajangmyeon (짜장면) or JJajangmyeon is actually a Chinese dish, introduced in 1905 by a Chinese chef in Incheon. Since then, it has fully become part of the Korean culture, invoking all sorts of memories for many Koreans young and old. There’s even a saying among Koreans about how a move to a new home is not complete unless you order Jajangmyeon at the end of a long moving day. For every Korean neighborhood, there’s always a Chinese restaurant nearby and delivery is a must.

Few days ago, in one of my TV favorite show – “Dad, where are you going?”(아빠 어디가? Appa Uh-diga?)- I watched Jjajangmyeon being delivered to a rice field!!? Even the dads were surprised to see the food when it came. Now, I call that service! In many ways, Jjajangmyeon is equivalent to America’s Pizza.

I have been making home made Jajangmyeon since 91′ after I got married (over 20 years?!) at the request of my husband. My recipe has evolved quite a bit over the years and I have to say I’m quite happy with this one. When I gave it to my daughter for tasting, she happily chanted “Your Jajangmyeon tastes better than the restaurant version!”. And the best part is, there is no MSG!

Couple things to note about different kinds of Jajangmyeons –

간짜장면 Kaan Jajangmyeon – more intense flavor because the sauce is condensed (just black bean paste and vegetables, little water) also more expensive

짜장면 Jajangmyeon – water or broth added to Kaan Jajang so it’s milder in flavor

In Korea, this Jinmi Chunjang (진미 춘장) is the standard black bean paste to use for Jajangmyeon. They used to have MSG in it but not any more so that’s a good thing. 🙂

Jinmi 춘장 Choonjang (Chinese Black Bean Paste)

Directions

Prepare ingredients below:

Vegetables and pork for jjajang

*See the lovely yellow carrot?! The pretty carrot is from my farm – we grew some colored carrots this summer and I decided to add the carrot for additional flavor. Carrot is totally optional but is a great way to hide additional nutrition for kids. I loved these carrots so much, I decided to take a picture –

colored carrots from our farm-more beta carotene than regular carrot

2. Chop all vegetables into small cubes.

Chopped vegetables for Jjajang Myeon

3. In a non-stick frying pan, add equal amount of chunjang and oil to pan on medium/medium low heat. Should be bubbling but not burning. Stirring often, cook for 7 min.

stir frying jajang (black bean paste) in oil

Lot of oil will be leftover after stir frying the paste.

Jjajang sauteed in oil (after 7 min of cooking)

4. WHILE the choonjang is cooking, in ANOTHER pan, add 2 T oil to pan on medium heat. Sauté just onions and cabbages for 10 min or more until onions become translucent. This will make your sauce taste sweeter!

cooked onions and cabbages

5. Remove chunjang from pan. It should be easy to bunch up the cooked chunjang and remove from oil. Like so-

chunjang cooked in oil

6. Discard the leftover oil in pan.

7. Remove onions and cabbages from pan and set aside. Sauté pork on med-high heat for 2-3 min in the same pan.

10. Stir fry for 2 min. Add 1 C water and 1 T sugar. Cook until the sauce is reduced to half. Reduce further for more condensed flavor.

11. Fresh noodles (국수 guksu) are best for Jajangmyeon. If you can buy one’s that says “짜장면 국수”, it should work fine. Believe it or not, I could not find it at my local market. Probably because not many Koreans make Jajangmyeon at home in Korea. I bought 칼국수 (Kalguksu/Kalgooksoo) and that worked fine. Just cook the noodles in boiling water for 7-10 min (based on package directions) and rinse in cold water.

fresh Korean noodle package (생 칼국수 saeng kalgooksoo)

12. Sauce is now ready!

Kaan Jjajangmyeon sauce (간짜장)

Just add noodles or rice to a bowl and top with this amazingly yummy Kaanjajang sauce!

Stir fry for 2 min. Add 1 C water and 1 T sugar. Cook until the sauce is reduced to half. Reduce further for more condensed flavor.

Fresh noodles are best. If you can buy one’s that says “짜장면 국수”, it should work fine.칼국수 (Kalguksu/Kalgooksoo) also works fine. cook noodles in boiling water for 7-10 min (based on package directions) and rinse in cold water.

Serve noodles topped with sauce.

Recipe Notes

Substitute white rice for noodles for Jajangbap.Add some fresh julienned cucumbers as topping.Substitute chicken for pork if you'd like.For richer sauce, use chicken broth but watch for salt content.

Nutrition Facts

Kaan Jajangmyeon

Amount Per Serving

Calories 637Calories from Fat 27

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 3g5%

Cholesterol 17mg6%

Sodium 1308mg55%

Potassium 611mg17%

Total Carbohydrates 134g45%

Dietary Fiber 3g12%

Sugars 10g

Protein 22g44%

Vitamin A72.1%

Vitamin C28.3%

Calcium4.3%

Iron5.2%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

How to make Jajangmyeon/Jjajang myeon? – In step 8, instead of reducing the sauce, just add 1 T corn starch mixed with 1/4 C water to the sauce and stir. The jajang sauce should thicken up and there you go!

Choonjang(춘장) and Jajang(짜장) are used interchangeably when referring to the black bean paste. Sometimes you may find 볶음짜장(bokkeum jajang) which means it’s already been fried in oil which means you can skip step 3.

Meat substitutions – use beef or chicken instead of pork and it will still taste great!

For richer sauce, use chicken broth instead of water. Watch out for saltiness though since chicken broth already has quite a bit of sodium. Use low sodium chicken broth or maybe half broth and half water.

Hi Daren, sure it would be a possible substitution but Jjajang noodles are lot chewier so if you’d like you can try buying some dry noodles online or even try using fresh udon noodles (if your local market sells them – Safeway stores in my area sells udon noodles). https://amzn.to/2GhYerO is one example. Hope this helps. Enjoy!

Hi JinJoo! I bought 500g of chunjang and I prepared several times my own jajangmyeon and jajanjbap. There’s still plenty of chunjang in the fridge, it seems like it never ends! lol Is there any other recipe in which chunjang can be used? Thank you very much for the information! Johnny

HAHAHA.. I totally know what you mean – I still have chunjang left from months ago.. yikes! You can actually make Tteokbokki with Chunjang. You can either mix it with some gochujang or just use Chunjang on its own. You will have to dilute it of course and add some sweet ingredients like sugar. Also one of my favorite is the side dish of just dipping raw onions in chunjang – strong stuff but its good! Good luck and thanks for asking.

I am fascinated and really enjoy cooking different recipes about Korean Cuisine. But I wonder if you cook different types of noodles for Noodle recipes like the following: Jajangmyeon: Korean Chinese Black Bean Noodles – I have often seen this at Korean Drama that I was watching few days ago. They kept on ordering it and eating it too. Will cook this in a few weeks. Jajampong: Seafood Soup with Ramen Noodles Nyangmeon: Cold Buckwheat Noodles Bibim Guksu: Spicy Cold Noodles

Do you also stick to brands names or what brands do you prefer? Cooking is better than buying instant style convenience foods. Thanks. I do follow your blog, and your recipes are really great.

Hi Estrella, this is such a great question!! I’m so glad that you asked this. So the best kind of noodles for both Jajangmyeon and Jampong are the Fresh Korean Noodles/Udon (우동 Udon 짜장 Jajang) sold at Korean markets. The brands don’t matter too much but they are usually sold in 1 kg packages containing 3-5 bundles of wet noodles. You can also use various Asian style noodles for udon/stir fry that is chewy in texture. The Korean fresh noodles are sometimes in freezer sections but mostly in refrigerated sections. For Naengmyeon (cold noodles), my favorite brand is dried Cheongsu (청수) Buckwheat Naengmyeon (냉면) that’s sold in dried foods section, usually next to Glass Noodles(당면 Dangmyeon) but other brands will work. For Bibim Guksu, you can buy dried buckwheat noodles(메밀국수 Maemil Guksu) or regular white noodles(소면 So-myeon) that is again in the dried foods section. You can also use regular Japanese soba noodles that you buy from any store for bibim guksu and it should work fine. Hope this helps and good for you for thinking that cooking is better than instant foods!! Thanks for asking.

I’m going to try to make this substituting those British-grown (fermented) favabeans, picture of which I posted on Instagram. Thank you as always for being such a rich resource of education, ideas, and recipes! xxx

That’s great to hear!! Good for you for not giving up! Having your kid liking it makes all the difference. 🙂 Making it home is so much more healthier than eating it at a restaurant..thanks for the comment!

Isn’t it good?? I know it’s not the same as the ones at restaurants but I like this version better in some ways because my jajangmyeon doesn’t contain lard like most restaurants version does. So glad to hear that your two year old likes it too!! Jajangmyeon/Jjajangmyeon used to be every kid’s favorite food when I was growing up. Thank you so much for the comment and have a good weekend!

Hi! It’s kind of hard to translate exactly but here it is – soy bean paste, flour, salt, caramel, wheat, stevia, ethanol. There is no meat! So if you want to make a vegetarian dish, just omit pork and use tofu instead or not even that! Good luck~

Includes spirits though so a no no for Muslims. The biggest issue with jjajjangmyeon is that it uses fermented beans meaning some alcohol is produced. Is there any way to make jjajjangmyeon from black soybeans without fermenting them?

Honestly I am not sure … Just maybe you can try cooking blackbeans and making paste from it and add some oil and salt?? Its really a wild guess..you will not get the exact taste I am sure but…i assume you can’t use soy sauce either?

Hello. I did make jajangmyeon but with a chinese style salted black soybean sauce in a jar. the brand is ‘tiger brand’ and it has halal certification from malaysia. https://redmart.com/product/tiger-brand-salted-black-soya-beans It tasted alright, im just not sure if its the same taste. But the taste reminds me of chee cheong fun.

On the other hand, fermented foods are okay for muslims, as long as we dont let the food ferment for too long to produce alcohol. the most common fermented foods i eat are fermented soybeans when we cook taucu. I also make my own kimchi but make my own paste instead of the storebought ones that contain alcohol.

Assalamu alaikum sister. I have been looking to find halal Korean fermented black bean paste everywhere and I happened to see your comment and was so happy that I finally found one with a halal certificate. But when I searched the contents of this product which included E150C and E211 which are very NOT halal. E150C is very harmful for your health (you can look it up) and E211 is also said to include fat of pig. So I wanted to tell you that the halal certificate might not be as reliable as you think. Again, assalamu alaikum.

Hello! Are you referring to the difference in flavor between different black bean pastes? I’m so glad you asked! I totally forgot to talk about it. Honestly, I have not tasted a whole lot of taste difference between the different Jjajang pastes. You should look at the ingredient list though and look for ones that does not include MSG. I’ve also uploaded an image of the paste I used for my post. Thanks so much for asking!

Thanks for the recipe! As a Chinese myself, my dad use to make the “Jjajang” with potatoes and when I visited Korea, I was slightly amused by how popular this dish was when it was a home cooked dish back home except without the noodle. I will definitely try out your version and see how it goes 🙂

That is odd.. first time I heard that it tastes burnt. Are you sure, you didn’t burn it in the beginning when you were frying the bean paste in oil? Perhaps you can try again with a different black bean paste. Sorry I can’t be of much help. Thanks so much!

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NUTRITIONAL FACTS, MSG & GLUTEN FREE

–Nutritional Facts in my recipe cards are provided as an estimate and may not be accurate. Due to different brands of ingredients having different nutritional values, the values I provide here may be different from your preparation. – MSG & Corn Syrup FREE – these are never used in my recipes – Gluten Free recipe assumes you are using gluten free soy sauce (since many soy sauces contain gluten or wheat).